THE 



ITISH AND DUTCH 



SOUTH AFRICA 



A PAPER 



READ BEFORE THE TRINITY CLUB OF TRINITY CHURCH, AND THE 

DORCHESTER HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND THE VICTORIAN 

CLUB OF BOSTON 



BY 



JAMES H. STARK 



BEING A COLLECTION OF FACTS OBTAINED FROM THE MOST 

AUTHENTIC SOUKCES, GIVINO A TRUE ACCOUNT OF 

WHAT CAUSED THE PRESENT WAR IN SOUTH 

AFRICA AND WHAT ITS EFFECT WILL 

BE ON THE FUTURE OF THE 

BRITISH EMPIRE 



PRICE FIVE CENTS 



English East Ina 

-" , ^ HED AT THE REQUEST OF THE VICTORIAN CLUB BY 

refreshment. 

Ini 602 a charter JAMES H. STARK 

India Company. Tht 3, ^ilk Street 

surprising successes ove. boston 

1900 




INTRODUCTORY^ 



It was my good fortune to visit Holland and England during 
the months of September and October, at the time of the out- 
break of hostilities in South Africa. As this was the principal 
topic under discussion at that time, I had an excellent opportu- 
nity of hearing both sides of the question. On my return to 
Boston I was requested by several societies to give them my views 
or opinions concerning the rights of the questions involved in the 
terrible drama now being enacted in South Africa. 

I was surprised to learn how little was known concerning the 
real merits of the case. The sympathy of many swayed towards 
the Boer side, on account of an ancient prejudice resulting from 
the Revolutionary war, they taking it for granted that England 
intended to oppress the Boer who was fighting for the freedom 
of his country. 

Another class, which is represented by the Fenian element, in 
its blind and unreasonable hatred of England, attempted to 
influence public opinion against Great Britain by false and mali- 
cious statements. To this class I would recommend the reading of 
the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kimberley's letter contained in 
this pamphlet. A large majority of the intelligent and educated 
classes were in favor of England, but even here there were excep- 
tions, such as Senator Hoar, Edwin Mead, and that old-time cham- 
pion of the negro. Col. T. W. Higginson. In addition to the 
information I obtained abroad I am also indebted to writers who 
have made a study of this question, such as Alleyne Ireland, Mr. 
Fitzpatrick, Mr. Hillegas, and to several able editorials in the 
'' Boston Herald." At the time of writing this paper I had no 
thought of pubhshing it, but at the special request of the Vic- 
torian Club of Boston I have issued it in pamphlet form for the 
purpose of enlightening the public on this momentous question. 

James 



Copyrighted, 1900, by James H. St 




TVSro COPIES RECEIVE] 



Library cf CoSB?et% 
Siic- ^^' »'• Office cf tfco X^ 

FEB 1-1900 /^ 

THE BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH 
Vio'X^ AFRICA. 

Discovery of tlie Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese^ 

In i486 — six years before Columbus discovered America — 
two little vessels under command of Bartholomew Dias sailed 
from Portugal with the same object in view — to discover a new 
ocean road to India. Pushing his way down the west coast of 
Africa, Dias passed onward beyond the farthest point previously 
known and reached a bold headland which he called the Cape of 
Storms, but which was renamed by King John the Second the 
Cape of " Good Hope." Ten years later Vasco da Gama, with 
four small vessels, again visited the coast. On the 20th of No- 
vember, 1497, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Keeping 
within sight of the shore, on the 2Sth of December Da Gama 
passed by a beautiful land to which he gave the name Natal, in 
memory of the day when Christian men first saw it. On the 6th 
of January the fleet reached Delagoa Bay, where the Portuguese 
landed and traded with the natives. 

Sailing again. Da Gama next touched at Quilimane, where he 
found people that had dealings with the Arabs, and thence he 
continued his voyage to India. The highway to the East being 
now open, every year fleets sailed to and from Portugal. In a 
short time the Indian seas fell entirely under Portuguese domin- 
ion, and an immense trade was opened up. After a long interval 
English, Dutch, and French ships followed the Portuguese to 
India. In 1591, the English flag was seen at the Cape for the 
first time. Three ships — the pioneers of the vast fleets that 
have since followed the same course, then put into Table Bay, on 
their way to India. Their crews were suffering from the scurvy. 
Here they obtained good refreshments, for, in addition to wild 
fowl, shell-fish, and plants of various kinds, they bartered for some 
oxen and sheep with the Hottentots. For many years after the 
English East India Company made Table Bay a port of call and 
refreshment. 

In 1602 a charter was issued at the Hague to the Dutch East 
India Company. The fleets sent out by this Company gained 
surprising successes over the Portuguese, in India, and the profits 



0."^ c, 



2 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 

made by this Company during the early years of its existence 
were enormous. The Portuguese ships, factories, and possessions 
of all kinds in India were fair prize of war, and the most valuable 
were shortly in the hands of the Dutch. Its fleets usually put 
into Table Bay for the purpose of taking in fresh water, giving 
the crews a run on land, catching fish, and getting the latest in- 
telligence from the places to where they were bound. Letters 
were buried on shore, and notices of the places where they were 
deposited were marked on conspicuous stones. 

Settled by the Dutch^ x. /? % % 4 

Six months was considered a quick passage Derween Holland 
and Batavia, and it was no uncommon thing for one-third of the 
crew to have perished and another third to be helpless with 
scurvy when the ships arrived there. Table Bay was regarded as 
two-thirds of the distance from Amsterdam to Batavia, and the 
Company thought that by establishing a settlement on its shores 
many lives could be saved and much suffering be avoided. It 
was not their intention to found a colony, but merely to make 
a large garden and raise vegetables for the supply of the fleet and 
to barter oxen and sheep from the Hottentots and to build a great 
hospital in which sick men could be left to recover their health. 

In April, 1652, Jan Van Riebeek and a party of about 150 
were landed at Table Bay, and in this manner South Africa 
became settled by the Dutch. 

In 1658 the great mistake of introducing negro slaves was made 
— a mistake from which the country has suffered much, and is the 
first and principal cause of the present trouble. There was no 
necessity for the introduction of slavery, for the climate for nine 
months in the year is to Europeans the pleasantest in the world, 
and white men can work in the open air without discomfort. 

A few years later many permanent colonists came out from 
Holland. The Company also sent out many young women from 
the orphan asylum in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, who were care- 
fully protected and provided for until they found husbands in the 
colony. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove many 
thousands of Protestant refugees from France into Holland. 
Several hundred of these people came to the Cape and proved to 
be good colonists. General Joubert, the present Boer commander, 
is a descendant of these colonists. The Hfe led by these pioneers 
of civilization was rough and wild, but had its own peculiar charm. 
Cattle breeding was found to pay fairly well ; they enjoyed good 
health and perfect freedom. The children of Dutch gardeners, 
German mechanics, and Huguenot tradesmen by force of circum- 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 3 

stances reverted in habits and in thought to the condition of semi- 
civiUzation. In their migration from place to place, with their 
herds, the family slept in a great tent-wagon and passed the day 
in the open air, usually selecting a patch of trees on the bank of 
a stream for a camping-place. A distaste for town life, with its 
restraints and all the nameless annoyances to which simple 
people are exposed when in contact with men of sharper intellect, 
soon became part of the nature of a cattle-breeder, and grew 
stronger with each succeeding generation, which at last culminated 
in their hate and contempt for the Outlander, or foreigner. 

In 1793 Western Europe was in the throes of the mightiest 
convulsion of modern times. France had become a republic, 
the people of the Netherlands were divided into two parties, one 
of which was in sympathy with the French, and the other favored 
William, Prince of Orange, and an alliance with England. A 
declaration of war with England and the Orange party was issued 
at Paris. The Prince escaped to England, and issued an order 
to the authorities at Cape Town to admit English troops into the 
castle and forts. Admiral Elphinstone and Major- General Craig, 
who were in command of the sea and land forces, presented the 
mandate to the Governor and Council. 

Ceded to Great Britain* 

The colony capitulated on Jan. 10, 1806. The British occu- 
pation was made permanent by a Convention, signed in 18 14, 
between Great Britain and the Netherlands, by the terms of 
which England paid thirty million dollars for the cession of the 
Cape Colony and of the Dutch colonies of Demerara, Berbice, 
and Essequibo, which now form the colony of British Guiana. 

It w^as hoped that the Dutch and the English in the Cape Col- 
ony would live together in friendly intercourse, and that eventu- 
ally, by intermarriage, a fusion of the two races would be effected. 
This hope was doomed to disappointment, for an antagonism 
gradually developed between the old and the new colonists which 
led to the establishment of two republics beyond the border of the 
Colony. The first step toward the formation of these republics 
was the emigration during 1836 and 1837 of about eight thou- 
sand Dutch farmers from the Cape Colony — a movement which 
is generally referred to as the Great Trek. These men went out 
of the Colony and estabHshed themselves in the vast hinterland. 

Emancipation of the Slaves* 

The principal cause that led to the Great Trek was the pas- 
sage of the Emancipation Act in May, 1833, when it was enacted 



4 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

that on and after the first of August, 1834, all slaves should be 
free throughout the British dominion. A compensation of Sioo,- 
000,000 was granted to the slave-holders, the grandest and noblest 
act done by any nation in the history of the world. 

The number of slaves freed here at this time was about 
40,000, mostly in the hands of the Dutch. The value of these 
slaves was three milHon pounds sterling, but the Imperial Govern- 
ment awarded only a million and a quarter as compensation. In 
this respect the Dutch slaveholders were no worse off than the 
West Indian slaveholders, but they undoubtedly had a grievance 
in the fact that the compensation was made payable in London. 
George McCall Theal, the historian of South Africa, says: **It is 
not easy to bring home to the mind the widespread misery that 
was occasioned by the confiscation of two millions' worth of prop- 
erty in a small and poor community like that of the Cape in 
1835. There were to be seen families reduced from affluence to 
want, widows and orphans made destitute, poverty and anxiety 
brought into the hundreds of homes." 

Slagter^s Neck Affair* 

Another important cause of discontent lay in the policy of pro- 
tection of native interests, which was vigorously enforced by the 
British authorities. As early as 18 15 the ill-treatment of the 
natives by the Dutch produced great friction. In that year a 
complaint was laid before a magistrate against one Frederik 
Bezuidenhout, for assault on a native sen^ant. A summons to 
appear was disregarded, and a warrant was issued for the man's 
arrest. Every efibrt was made to effect the arrest peaceably ; but 
the man surrounded himself with a band of his friends, and fired 
on the party detailed to make the arrest. A fight ensued in which 
Bezuidenhout w^as killed and thirty-nine of his comrades were 
arrested. They were tried by jury before the High Court, and 
five of them were condemned to death. This affair is constantly 
recited by the Boers at pubhc meetings in order to inflame the 
people against the English, and is known as the Slagter's Neck 
massacre. An entirely new light is thrown on the matter by 
Canon Knox Little in his '^ Sketches and Studies in South Africa." 
He asserts that the Dutch Field Cornet, under whose immediate 
orders the execution was carried out, had in his pocket, at the 
time of the execution, the Governor's order for the pardon of the 
prisoners ; that he suppressed it from motives of personal spite ; 
and that afterwards, fearing detection, he committed suicide. 

In 1835 th^ Boers shook the dust of Cape Colony from their 
feet and trekked northwards. They issued a manifesto de- 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IIST SOUTH AFRICA. 5 

nouncing the ''vexatious laws" passed in the interests of the 
slaves, and complaining of the losses thereby inflicted on the Boers. 
They also cried out against '' the continual system of plunder which 
we have endured from the Kaffirs and other colored classes," 
and the '' unjustifiable odium " cast on them by '' interested and 
dishonest persons under the cloak of religion" {i,e,, the mission- 
aries). The last clause read thus: ''We quit this colony under 
the full assurance that the English Government has nothing more 
to require of us, and will allow us to govern ourselves without 
interference in the future." 

They moved up to Natal, and fought, and finally conquered, 
the natives. They set up a republic, but in a few years they had 
so incensed the natives that the peace of the Cape was menaced, 
and the British Government had to intervene. 

In 1843 ^ short struggle resulted in the defeat of the Boers, 
and Natal was annexed by Great Britain on May 12, 1843, "for 
the peace, protection, and salutary control of all classes of men 
settled at and surrounding this important portion of South Africa." 

For similar reasons the country lying between the Orange and 
Vaal rivers immediately below the present Transvaal Republic, 
which had been seized by the Boers, was also taken possession 
of by the British in 1848. There was a stout resistance, but it 
was subdued, and the country was re-annexed to Great Britain 
under the title of the Orange River Sovereignty. 

The Sand River Convention^ 

In 1852 the Little England policy being in the ascendant at 
home, the government of the day, sick of the duty of protecting 
the natives, decided on a policy of scuttle. The British author- 
ity theoretically extended up to the twenty-fifth degree of lati- 
tude, which included the territory north of the Vaal, of which 
another division of the Boers had taken forcible possession, 
driving the natives before them and parcelling out the land into 
farms. Under an agreement known as the Sand River Conven- 
tion, Great Britain formally renounced all rights over the Trans- 
vaal. The raiding of the natives and the seizure of their children 
as slaves, led, however, to the following article being embodied 
in the Convention : " It is agreed that no slavery is or shall be 
permitted or practised in the country to the north of the Vaal 
river by the emigrant farmers." 

In 1854, by another Convention, Great Britain relinquished 
authority over the Orange River Sovereignty, which is now known 
as the Orange Free State, and owes so much of its prosperity to 
the wise administration of the late Sir Henry Brand. 



6 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 

One of the first uses the Boers of the Transvaal made of their 
independence was to get rid of the missionaries, who preached 
pestilent doctrines of equality. Dr. Livingstone states, in his 
^^ Missionary Travels," that it was the attempt to drive him out 
which brought him to a determination to make his famous jour- 
ney across Africa. The missionaries were constant witnesses of 
the capture of native children by Boer commandos and angered 
the Boers by their protests. 

Revolt of the Natives and Collapse of the Republic* 

In i860 Paul Kruger makes his first appearance as a leader at 
the head of a troop against the Acting President (one Schoeman) 
in one of the numerous faction fights that occurred between the 
rival candidates for power. These and the incessant raids on 
the natives kept the Republic in a state of constant turmoil. 
The Boers refused to pay their taxes, and the finances fell into 
a serious condition. The truth was the Republic had no sort of 
control over its scattered and arrogant flock. The Boer farmers 
hunted the natives, whom they called " black ivory," burned 
their kraals, appropriated their best land, and carried off their 
children to work on Boer farms, notwithstanding the slavery 
clause of the Sand River Convention. 

In 187 1, after a long tussle between rival leaders, Mr. Bur- 
gers was appointed President. He was in some respects an 
able and conscientious man, but he was powerless to establish 
discipline over an ignorant and lawless race, and it was in his 
time that the worst crisis came. He obtained a loan from the 
Cape to replenish the empty exchequer ; he endeavored to es- 
tablish a system of education ; and he spent his private fortune 
in an abortive attempt to construct a railway to Delagoa Bay. 
But while Burgers was striving to civihze his barbarians they were 
carrying on with greater vigor than ever their favorite sport of 
plundering the native tribes. The successive maps of the Trans- 
vaal show how the State was expanded by these means — how 
little by little the boundaries were extended by force, fraud, or 
fair means, at the expense of the less warlike of the tribes. A 
sudden check, however, came from the powerful chief Secocoeni, 
who became the champion of a section of the long-suffering 
Bechuanas, upon a large slice of whose territory the Boers had 
cast covetous eyes. After some preliminary successes, in which 
they had used a friendly tribe as cat's-paws, the Boers assailed 
Secocoeni in his stronghold. They were driven back with great 
loss, and they fled ignominiously. 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 



England Saves the Boers from Cetewayo by Annexation. 

The result of this reverse was to throw all the native tribes who 
had suffered from Boer oppression into a fever of warlike excite- 
ment. For the first time they saw a chance of settling accounts. 
The borders of the Transvaal and Natal seethed with native 
ardor for revenge, and at the Natal angle Cetewayo stood forth 
at the head of his savage and blood-thirsty impis panting to take 
the lead in ^'eating up" the white tyrants. The prospect was 
dark for the Boers. They cowered under the danger. But it 
was just as grave for the British territories. A general native ris- 
ing would involve Natal and probably Cape Colony in danger. 

The Government anxiously considered the situation, and re- 
solved to send out Sir Theophilus Shepstone with power to 
examine the position on the spot, and, if he deemed it necessary, 
to formally annex the country and march in a British garrison. 
He was accompanied by twenty-five mounted police, the only 
force he had within a month's march of him during the whole 
period of his stay, and at the time he issued the proclamation an- 
nexing the country. To assert that the Transvaal was forcibly 
annexed is, in the face of these facts, absurd. It is certain that 
a large proportion of the Boers themselves desired this measure, 
if only as a means of escape. Sir Theophilus Shepstone reported 
to Lord Carnarvon that he received memorials signed by 2,500 
Boers out of a total adult male population of 8,000 : 

" It was patent to every observer that the Government was 
powerless to control either its white citizens or its native subjects; 
that it was incapable of enforcing its laws or of collecting its 
taxes j and the Treasury was empty . . . that sums payable for 
the ordinary and necessary expenditure of government cannot be 
had . . . and that the powerful Zulu king, Cetewayo, is anx- 
ious to seize upon the first opportunity of attacking a country the 
conduct of whose warriors at Sekkukuni's Mountain has convinced 
him that it can be easily conquered by his clamoring regiments." 

He added that the President himself was " persuaded that 
under the present system of government the independence of the 
State could not be maintained." 

" I am convinced," wrote Sir A. Cunynghame, June 12, 1877, 
from Pretoria, ^' that had this country not been annexed it would 
have been ravaged by native tribes. Forty square miles of the 
country had been overrun by the natives and every house burned 
just before annexation." And he wrote again July 6 : "Every 
day convinces me that unless this country had been annexed it 
would have been a prey to plunder and rapine of the natives on 



8 BRITISH AND HUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

its border, joined by Secocoeni, Makok, and other tribes of the 
Transvaal. Feeling the influence of the British Government, they 
are now tranquil." Sir T. Shepstone also wrote concerning the 
reality of the danger. Under date December 25 he says : '* The 
Boers are still flying, and I think by this time there must be a belt 
a hundred miles long and thirty broad in which with three insig- 
nificant exceptions there is nothing but absolute desolation. This 
will give your Excellency some idea of the mischief which Cete- 
wayo's conduct has caused." 

These were briefly the circumstances under which Sir The- 
ophilus Shepstone acted upon the instructions given to him and 
proclaimed the restoration of British authority in the Transvaal. 
It was not done until the Volksraad had been convened and de- 
clined the President's appeal to it to confer power on the Execu- 
tive to carry out an alternative scheme. The proclamation was 
therefore made on April 12, 1877. 

So much for the annexation which we are told was such a 
monstrous blot upon the honor of Lord Beaconfield's Govern- 
ment that England was bound to undo it three years later. Par- 
liament received the intelligence with tranquillity, and even with 
satisfaction, and scarcely a protest was heard among responsible 
politicians. 

The effect of annexation was an era of prosperity. The 
country's debts were paid, and the wells of plenty bubbled with 
British gold. In the Zulu War that followed the power of the 
Zulus had been broken, for they were a menace to the Transvaal. 
It, however, cost the British Government dearly in men and 
money. It was in this war that the Prince Imperial of France 
lost his life. It is noteworthy that with the splendid exception 
of the lion-hearted Piet Uys and his son, who died, — father and 
one son in the Zulu war side by side with the Britishers, whom he 
keenly opposed on the annexation question, — none of the Boers 
came forward to help in the Secocoeni or Zulu wars, although 
these wars were undertaken on their account. 

'^British Territory as Long as the Stin Shone**^ 

Very little was heard from the Boers in the way of protest 
against the new order of things until they saw that the Zulu 
power, which had so terrified them, had been finally broken by the 
British army. That was done in the early part of 1879, and then 
they began to pose as martyrs and to agitate for the retrocession 
of the country. Sir Garnet Wolseley was appointed High Com- 
missioner, and went straight from Zululand to the Transvaal in 
September, 1879. He at once began to destroy any illusion 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 9 

which the Boers might have about retrocession. On his way up 
he made the emphatic statement at a public dinner at Wakkers- 
troom that the Transvaal would remain British territory " as long 
as the sun shone." A few days later, finding two of the Boer 
leaders inquiring for a reply to a memorial on the subject, Sir 
Garnet issued a formal proclamation, of which the following was 
the essential clause : 

" Now, therefore, I do hereby proclaim and make known, in the 
name and on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, that it is the will 
and determination of Her Majesty's Government that this Trans- 
vaal territory shall be, and shall continue to be forever, an 
integral portion of Her Majesty's dominions in South Africa.*' 

Alas ! the Boers knew Mr. Gladstone better than Sir Garnet 
Wolseley. But what was the effect of these out-and-out assur- 
ances on English traders in South Africa ? Secure in the pledged 
word of the representative of the Queen and the Government, 
they flocked into the Transvaal by hundreds, invested their money 
in its industries and trade, and prepared to settle down with their 
families. How much consideration they got for their faith in 
British statesmen we shall see later on. 

Mr» Gladstone's Incitements to Revolt and their Effects. 

As we have said, these formal, precise, and emphatic declara- 
tions by Sir Garnet Wolseley were made in the autumn of 1879. 
What followed ? Within a couple of months — in November, 
1879 — ^^- Gladstone went down to Mid-Lothian. It was his 
first ^^ pilgrimage of passion " against Lord Beaconsfield, and he 
made the annexation of the Transvaal one of the chief counts in 
his indictment, although neither he nor any other leading Liberal 
had made any distinct complaint before. Let it be borne in 
mind that it was just at this moment that the defeat of Cetewayo 
and the pacification of the country were stimulating the Boers to 
agitation for the retrocession. England had established security and 
order and a healthy finance, and then Messrs. Kruger, Pretorius, 
Joubert & Co. said : *^ Lo ! the enemy hath done all our dirty 
work. He has settled our accounts with Cetewayo and Secocoeni, 
and paid our bills. Come, let us reassert our claim to indepen- 
dence." At such a moment what an ally was Mr. Gladstone ! 
What was the value of Sir Garnet Wolseley's stern refusals if Mr. 
Gladstone two months afterwards was found treating the annexa- 
tion as an outrage and a matter for review? This was Mr. Glad- 
stone's mischievous reference to the Transvaal : 

" What is the meaning of adding places like Cyprus and places 
like the country of the Boers in South Africa to the British Em- 



Id BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 

pire ? And, moreover, I would say this : that if those acquisi- 
tions were as valuable as they are valueless, I would repudiate 
them, because they are obtained by means dishonorable to the 
character of our country." 

The blind folly of speeches like this at such a moment is 
almost appalling, especially when we see, as we shall directly, that 
Mr. Gladstone never intended to give back the country. Mr. 
Gladstone's speeches were received with enthusiasm in the Trans- 
vaal. They were distributed among the Boers by the Dutch 
papers on small slips. On March i8, 1880, at a meeting of the 
Boer Committee, held on a farm nearWonderfontein, a letter was 
drawn up thanking Mr. Gladstone for his sympathy. A week 
later the British Parliament was dissolved. The friend of the 
Boers was returned to power with a large majority. The Boers 
were elated beyond all precedent. They almost saw themselves 
in possession again and Sir Garnet Wolseley in disgrace. 

Mf. Gladstone's Qiange of Front* 

As soon as Mr. Gladstone had become Prime Minister, Messrs. 
Kruger and Joubert wrote to him (May 10), recalling his speeches 
and formally calling upon him to annul the annexation. But Mr. 
Gladstone in opposition and Mr. Gladstone in office were two 
different persons. Before the letter arrived the new Government 
had laid down their policy with respect to the Transvaal. In the 
Queen's Speech on the 20th May occurred this passage : 

^^ In maintaining my supremacy over the Transvaal, with its 
diversified population, I desire both to make provision for the 
security of the indigenous races and to extend to the European 
settlers institutions based on large and liberal principles of self- 
government." 

Mr. Gladstone defended this change of front by saying that '' it 
is quite possible to accept the consequences of a poUcy and yet 
to retain the original difference of opinion with regard to the 
character of that policy." But there was no ^^ original difference 
of opinion." In 1877 the House of Commons indorsed the an- 
nexation without any show of hostility. Mr. Leonard Courtney, 
then, as now, almost the only English champion of the Boers, 
rose and made a bitterly sarcastic speech on Mr, Gladstone's 
desertion. Analyzing the Premier's fine-spun distinctions, he 
said : " The Boers would not be able to understand all that. 
They were too simple. . . . They would ask why their wTongs, 
which were made so much of a few weeks ago, were not even 
recognized now." 

The decision of the Government was communicated to South 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, I I 

Africa by telegram, as follows : '^ Under no circumstances can 
the Queen's authority in the Transvaal be relinquished. ''* 

Now came the delicate matter of Mr. Gladstone's reply to the 
letter of Messrs. Kruger and Joubert. It was written in his best 
style of political casuistry. The substance of it is here : 

" It is undoubtedly matter for much regret that it should, since 
the annexation, have appeared that so large a number of the 
population of Dutch origin in the Transvaal are opposed to the 
annexation of that territory ; but it is impossible to consider that 
question as if it were presented for the first time. We have to deal 
with a state of things which has existed for a considerable period, 
during which obligations have been contracted, especially, thoicgh not 
exclusively, towards the native population, which cannot be set aside, 

'^Looking to all the circumstances, both of the Transvaal and 
the rest of South Africa, and to the necessity of preventing a 
renewal of disorders which might lead to disastrous consequences, 
not only to the Transvaal, but to the whole of South Africa, our 
judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish her 
sovereignty over the Transvaal.'* 

Exasperation and Revolt of tlie Boers* 

This reply naturally astonished and exasperated the Boers. 
They respected the firm and resolute attitude of Lord Beacons- 
field's Government. They were disgusted by the in-and-out 
tactics of the leader of the Liberal party, and set it down to in- 
firmity of purpose. It gave them the idea that though England 
under Beaconsfield was unshakable, England under Gladstone 
might be made to do anything. All over the country a simmer 
of violence broke out. In the course of a month or two it mani- 
fested itself in a determination to refuse to pay taxes. Towards 
the end of the year this became an organized policy. The British 
authorities selected a case for enforcement at Potchefstroom. 
This rallied the Boers to a focus. A mass meeting was held at 
Paarde Kraal. It lasted from December 8 to 13, and resulted in 
a determination to rise in arms. A triumvirate, consisting of 
Kruger, Joubert, and Pretorius, was appointed to administer the 
government ; three commandos were organized and despatched 
to take possession of various towns, and on December 16 the flag 
of revolt was hoisted. One of the commandos succeeded in in- 
tercepting a detachment of the ninety-fourth Regiment at a spot 
known as Bronker's Spruit. The first intimation our troops re- 
ceived of what was afoot was a storm of bullets. Then Colonel 
Anstruther was summoned to surrender. He refused, and then 
there followed a terrific onslaught, almost amounting to a massacre. 



12 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



The Decimation of the British Forces^ 

On January 28 Sir George Colley was repulsed in his attempt 
to storm Laing's Nek, a narrow and steep pass across the 
Drakensburg Mountains, which separate the Transvaal from 
Natal. He had only 1,000 men, while the Boers were strongly 
posted with about 4,000, all picked shots. Colley was urged 
to wait for reenforcements, but he thought the garrisons needed 
help, and pushed madly on. A still more miserable exhibition 
of rashness was the next engagement on the Ingogo river, 
where our troops were caught in the open, and riddled by the 
Boers from the rock cover. Under cover of night Colley crept 
back and so escaped annihilation. His small British force was 
now reenforced by some troops under the command of Sir Evelyn 
Wood, whom he sent back to Natal, intending to make a bold 
and rapid effort to retrieve his disasters. This took the form of 
the wild climb up Majuba Hill, a mountain 6,000 feet high and 
3,000 feet above the camp level. What his idea was in gaining 
this worthless position will never be known, but if he thought he 
would be at least secure he proved to be fatally wrong. The 
Boers were plainly startled to find him there. It is almost a 
fortress in itself, owing to its steep and nigged slopes, but the 
Boers knew it better than anybody, and being strongly reenforced, 
made the famous rush that overwhelmed General Colley. They 
made their attack on three sides, and so dispersed the attention 
of the British force. 

Mr* Gladstone's Surrender of the Queen's Authority* 

Majuba was fought and lost on February 27. But two or 
three weeks prior to that, and soon after Laing's Nek, the wires 
were carrying messages designed to stop the vindication of the 
Queen's authority. President Brand, of the Orange Free State, 
began the overtures, and the Government offered a settlement 
on the Boers ceasing armed opposition. That message arrived 
while Ingogo was in progress, on February 8. On the 13th Gen- 
eral Colley received a cool communication from Kruger re- 
quiring a cancellation of the annexation, and offering thereupon 
to allow the British troops to retire. Lord Kimberley telegraphed 
on the 1 6th offering to submit a scheme to a Royal Commission 
on the Boers laying down their arms ; then no progress was made 
till the Majuba disaster brought Mr. Gladstone to his knees. He 
did so far respond to public feeling as to allow Sir Frederick 
Roberts to be sent out from England with large reenforcements, 
but while they were on the sea he took care their services should 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 13 

not be required. An armistice was arranged, and Sir Evelyn 
Wood was instructed on March 12 to promise complete internal 
self-government under British suzerainty. These were the terms 
the Boers accepted and signed at O'Neill's Farm, under the 
shadow of Majuba, on March 28. They had won all their 
battles, and they had achieved the full aims with which they 
revolted. 

Mr. Gladstone is dead, and I harbor no kind of personal dis= 
respect towards his memory ; as a philanthropist he may have 
been a great and good man, but as a statesman he has cost his 
country more than any other man in his generation. He left 
Gordon to his fate, and it has taken ten years to reconquer the 
Soudan and has cost Britain thousands of lives and millions of 
money. His scuttling out of the Transvaal has been the cause 
of the present war. If he had not been defeated in his Irish 
Home Rule scheme it probably would have disrupted the Empire, 
for, as John Bright said to him, I see no difference between 
disunion in the United States and disunion in the United 
Kingdom. 

The Pretoria Convention of \ZU and J884» 

The formal instrument restoring the Transvaal to the Boers 
was the Pretoria Convention, signed and published on Aug. 3, 
t88i. The articles of this Convention were amended and 
altered by the London Convention of Feb. 27, 1884. The Con- 
vention of 1 88 1 consisted of a Preamble and a number of 
Articles, The Preamble grants self-government to the inhab- 
itants of the Transvaal in these words : " Complete self-govern- 
ment, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, to the inhabitants 
of the Transvaal territory, upon certain terms and conditions, 
and subject to certain reservations and limitations." 

As there can be no question as to the assertion of the suzer- 
ainty in the Convention of 188 1, there remains only one point to 
be dealt with — whether the suzerainty persists in the Conven- 
tion of 1884. 

Any doubt as to the existence of the suzerainty would at once 
be removed by an examination of the circumstances under 
which the Convention of 1884 was signed. The Transvaal dele- 
gates requested the British Government to do away with the 
suzerainty by making the proposed Convention a treaty between 
two powers. This the Government refused to do on the ground 
that the Transvaal was not in fact an independent power, nor 
was it intended that it should be represented as such. So the 
issue was definitely raised before the Convention was signed, 



14 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

and the Transvaal delegates signed the Convention knowing the 
feelings of Her Majesty's Government on the matter. 

The South African Republic presented the curious anomaly of 
the largest body in the State, the Kaffirs, being deprived by con- 
quest of all rights, the Boers regarding the negro as not belong- 
ing to the human race, and is having no soul. 

The Outlanders, comprising the wealth, the education, and 
knowledge of aifairs of the white population, of having been ex- 
cluded by law from the enjoyment of the rights of citizenship, 
while a small minority, possessing neither education nor wealth, 
nor knowledge of affairs, claims a divine right to govern all 
others. 

From the date of the signing of the London Convention has 
gradually been accumulating that mass of grievances of British 
subjects in the Transvaal which forms the backbone of the present 
difficulties between Great Britain and the South African Republic. 

The Grievances of the Outlanders* 

The question is often asked why the Uitlanders went to the Trans- 
vaal if the laws were unsatisfactory. The answer is that they were 
invited to go by the Boer Government, and notably by Mr. Kruger 
himself; and that when they immigrated the existing laws were 
very favorable to the Uitlanders. It was only after their capital 
and labor had rescued the Transvaal from imminent bankruptcy 
that the liberal laws were superseded by the present adverse laws.* 

In 1884 Paul Kruger was in London. He was so poor that he 
could not pay his hotel bill and it was paid for him by a generous 
EngHshman. He then expressly and publicly invited English- 
men and Americans to settle in the Transvaal and to conduct 
mining there. 

Mr. Kruger afterward sold one of his own farms to English- 
men for $500,000, paid in gold. His friends and neighbors sold 
other farms at even greater prices, receiving altogether, from 
foreign settlers (principally English, although including a con- 
siderable number of Germans, Frenchmen, and Americans), many 
millions of dollars. 

These foreign settlers produce every dollar's worth of wealth 
which can be exported from the Transvaal, and every dollar in 
excess of what will suffice for a very bare existence to the old 

1 Those who desire to find chapter and verse, as authority for the statements con- 
tained in the following- grievances of the Outlanders, can do so by reading two books, 
Fitzpatrick's "Transvaal," written by an Irishman, on the anti-Boer side, and '* Com 
Paul's People," written by Howard C. Hillegas, exclusively in favor of the Boers and 
avowedly suppressing all statement of any wrongful acts done by the Boers; never- 
theless, the worst points against the Boers will be found in Mr. Hillegas' book. 



BRITISH AND DUTCH HV SOUTH AFRICA, 15 

residents. Every dollar of the wealth now possessed by Mr. 
Kmger, his sons-in-law, his officials, and indeed any part of the 
Transvaal population, has been produced by these settlers. 

The taxes levied annually in the Transvaal have exceeded 
;?2o,ooo,ooo. Nine-tenths of this amount have been collected 
from the foreign settlers whom Mr. Kruger invited into the 
country. 

No appreciable part of these taxes is expended for the benefit 
of the foreign settlers. If this sum were equally divided among 
all the Boers it would furnish an annual income of about §2,000 
for each family, which would pay three times over all their living 
expenses. 

No such equal division is made, but half these taxes have been 
spent in making preparation for war, and the other half devoted 
to the payment of enormous salaries to and jobs for Mr. Kruger, 
his sons-in-law, friends, and political supporters. Mr. Kruger 
himself has avowedly received §35,000 a year salary, while on 
repeated occasions sums of §15,000 and §25,000 have been 
paid out of taxes for his direct and exclusive benefit, as appears 
by public records. How much more has been spent without 
public record can only be gussed. His son-in-law and private 
secretary possesses (so says Mr. Hillegas) a single house costing 
§259,000, and rolls in wealth besides, as he must, to support such 
a house. 

The official records in a Transvaal lawsuit, arising upon a 
quarrel between two sets of Boer plunderers, show that every Boer 
official worth bribing, including Kruger's son-in-law, received 
bribes from a Boer railroad company. The amount of each bribe 
was set forth in a bill of particulars filed in open court. Not 
one of these men ever denied the receipt of these bribes. 

The foreign settlers, exclusively, built Johannesburg — a fine 
town, with 50,000 inhabitants. They were not merely denied 
any right to govern that city ; they were denied any municipal 
government whatever. This is proved, not only by the explicit 
statements of Mr. Hillegas, the American representative of the 
Boers, but also by a proclamation of Paul Kruger himself dated 
in January, 1896. Mr. Kruger states that not §5 could be ex- 
pended in repairing a road or a bridge without first receiving 
express authority from Pretoria. 

As a consequence of this total lack of good government, the 
death rate in Johannesburg has been constantly three or four 
times as great as even in New York. There is no use in com- 
paring it with ordinary mining camps, because Johannesburg is 
a fine city, built by intelligent and educated men. 



16 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 

The foreign settlers in the Transvaal were denied the right to bear 
any arms, while every male Boer, from sixteen years old upwards, 
is heavily armed and drilled, at the expense of the foreigners. 

By a press law, passed for the avowed object of crushing the 
foreign settlers, all newspapers were placed at the mercy of 
President Kruger, who can suppress them at his pleasure. 

By another law, passed for the same purpose, all meetings of 
more than seven persons in the open air are absolutely prohibited, 
while all other meetings can be dissolved in an instant, at the 
discretion of any policeman. 

Another law was passed, absolutely prohibiting the presentation 
by any foreigner of even so much as a petition for redress. 

When Mr. Kruger invited foreigners to settle in the Transvaal 
full naturalization could be obtained within two years. After 
foreigners had^ accepted his invitation he repealed all naturaliza- 
tion laws, absolutely. Then, under pressure, he restored the laws, 
but made the term fourteen years; but any foreigner desiring 
naturalization must renounce all protection, even from his own 
Government or the Boer Governmient, for fourteen years, during 
which time he would be a citizen of no country whatever, and 
have no rights which any Boer would be bound to respect. 
During these fourteen years he must be ready to serve in the 
Boer army on twelve hours' notice, and he would be frequently 
called upon to serve, without pay, clothing, or even food, which 
he must provide for himself. At the end of these fourteen years 
of degrading humiliation he would not be allowed to vote for any 
office worth voting for, unless his bumble petition was approved 
by two-thirds of his Boer neighbors, by the military chief of his 
district, and finally by Mr. Kruger himself. Neither would he be 
allowed to vote, even then, unless he were forty years of age. 

While nearly two-thirds of all persons residing in the Transvaal 
spoke only the English language, and less than one-third either 
spoke or could understand the barbarous Boer Dutch, the Boers 
insisted that all English-speaking children must take their educa- 
tion exclusively in Dutch. 

President Kruger resisted the introduction of railroads for 
years in order to compel the miners to hire his private ox teams 
at enormous prices. When finally he did permit railways to be 
built he granted the privilege exclusively to persons who would 
agree to give to his relatives a big share of the profits. He 
granted monopolies of several indispensable articles of supply to 
the mines, with the result of doubling the price at which they 
could otherwise have been obtained. 

No Roman Catholic or Jew can become naturalized or hold 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, ly 

office in the Transvaal, for Law No. 3 of 1894 distinctly provides 
that the naturalized citizen, before being admitted to full burgher 
rights, shall first have been qualified to sit in the second Volksraad, 
one of the conditions of which is that he must be 30 years of age 
and a member of the Protestant church. It is also hedged about 
by other provisions, which we need not here specify. Several 
times last summer the Raad was asked to remove these disabilities 
from Catholics and Jews, and it refused to do so. 

The whole Transvaal Government was corrupt from top to 
bottom. No business could be done with them without bribing 
the President's sons-in-law and hangers-on. 

Attempt at Revolution. 

In 189s a petition praying for redress, signed by thirty- eight 
thousand Uitlanders, was presented to the Volksraad, and was 
rejected with insult and ridicule, one member saying that if the 
Uitlanders wanted any rights they had better fight for them. 
Many years before, the late Mr. W. Y. Campbell, as spokesman 
of a deputation from Johannesburg, addressing President Kruger, 
stated in the course of his remarks that the people of Johannes- 
burg " protested " against a certain measure. The President 
jumped up in one of his characteristic moods and said : " Protest ! 
protest 1 What is the good of protesting? You have not got the 
guns ! I have.'* And Mr. Campbell, in repeating this in Johannes- 
burg, said : *' You can take my name off any other deputation, 
for we'll get nothing for asking." It was such brutal sayings as 
this that led to the attempt at revolution by the Outlanders. 
On Dec. 26, 1895, a manifesto was issued by the Transvaal 
National Union, in which the demands of the Outlanders were 
stated. The principal demands were : The establishment of the 
Republic as a true republic ; a constitution framed by the repre- 
sentatives of the whole people, which should be safeguarded against 
hasty alteration ; an equitable franchise law ; and the indepen- 
dence of the courts of justice. 

Having remonstrated for many years in vain, and having re- 
ceived frequent promises of reform, which were never kept and 
were never meant to be kept, a number of foreign residents, includ- 
ing more Americans, in proportion to their total number, than of 
any other nationality except British, conspired together to compel 
these reforms to be granted, by force of arms. They collected 
rifles, gunpowder, etc., but never made any use of them and never 
committed any overt act, for, owing to misunderstandings. Dr. 
Jameson, of the British South Africa Company, who with a body 
of men was on the frontier ready to give aid if fighting were 



1 8 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

resorted to, entered the Transvaal with his force before the time 
appointed, and thus entirely destroyed the plans of the National 
Union. The story of the Jameson raid is too long to enter into ; 
but it may be remarked that every effort was made by the High 
Commissioner and by Cecil Rhodes to recall Jameson before he 
met the Boers ; that the raid was promptly condemned by the 
British authorities ; and that Dr. Jameson and his officers were 
subsequently tried, convicted, and imprisoned by a British court 
of justice, for violation of the Foreign Enlistments Act. 

Compare this with the punishment meted out by the United 
States against the Fenians captured on their return from the inva- 
sion of Canada in 1866. Or the annexation of Texas after our 
citizens had gone in and dispossessed the Mexicans, and lately 
also the annexation of Hawaii after a little handful of American 
capitalists had seized the control of that former island kingdom. 
We have done with the general national approval more than once 
what we have accused England of doing in the Transvaal. 

Punishment of the Revolutionists* 

The conspiracy being discovered before the conspirators car- 
ried it out, sixty of them, including six Americans, were arrested, 
cast into an indescribably filthy jail, and informed that unless they 
pleaded guilty they would be all hanged, but that if they did 
plead guilty they would be let off with fines. 

Being brought into court, they were charged with an offence 
which by the express statute law of Boerdom was punishable with 
nothing more than a short term of imprisonment. Being assured 
by the Boer prosecuting officers that they would receive no 
greater sentence than this, and would be allowed to escape with 
fines, if they pleaded guilty, they did so plead ; although, as to 
many of them, the offence could never have been legally proved. 

No judge then on the bench being quite unscrupulous enough 
to serve Mr. Kruger's turn, he imported an utterly unscrupulous 
judge named Gregorowiski. This judge publicly stated that he 
came for the express purpose of making it hot for the Outlanders. 
After the prisoners had all pleaded guilty this judge announced 
that, as to the four leaders, he should not sentence them under 
the statute law, but would resort to the unwritten law of the 
Transvaal, which prescribed death for such an offence. Accord- 
ingly he sentenced these four (one of whom was a distinguished 
American, and probably the ablest mining engineer in the world) 
to death, and all the others to various terms of imprisonment and 
heavy fines. Their offences were such as could not have been 
punished in the United States by more than a short term of im- 



BRITISH AISFD DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 19 

prisonment or fines not exceeding ^1,000. They neither planned 
nor desired to become a British colony. 

Even the Dutch settlers of South Africa being horrified at this 
sentence, and pouring by hundreds into Pretoria to remonstrate 
against it, Mr. Kruger graciously took the matter into considera- 
tion, but announced that his religious scruples forbade that he 
should commute the death sentence into fines, because such fines 
would be "the price of blood,' ' and his reverence for his dear 
Lord forbade that he should be less scrupulous than the priests of 
Jerusalem. 

The pious Boers therefore informed the prisoners that they 
could not be released on the payment of any fines, but that if the 
prisoners would of their own accord offer to " subscribe for 
charities " sums varying from ^25,000 to ;? 100,000 each, for the 
leading men, and not less than ^10,000 for anybody, the merciful 
President might be induced to pardon them, without any fines or 
imprisonment. 

Both the British and the American Governments being at that 
time too chicken-hearted to intervene in these proceedings, this 
offer had to be accepted. The American citizens all made heavy 
contributions to "charity," Mr. John Hays Hammond paying 
^100,000. No such penalties were ever exacted in the whole 
history of the United States, nor during the last century, in any 
other civilized country. 

These "charitable contributions," amounting to about ;?i,ooo,- 
000 in all, were duly paid over to his Highness Paul Kruger or 
his son-in-law. It is needness to say that the "charities" have 
never turned up, although four years have now elapsed since the 
^1,000,000 was safely deposited under the control of the pious 
Paul Kruger. 

Both the British and the American Governments meekly sub- 
mitted to these outrages upon their citizens — more shame for 
them both ! No wonder that Kruger described both Englishmen 
and Americans as " dogs, who, if they were good, would lick his 
boots." 

The advocates of the Boers in this country assert that these 
acts have occurred only since the Jameson raid of December, 
1895. In this there is not one word of truth, except, of course, 
as to the trial and sentences of the Outlanders. All the other 
acts of oppression above narrated, and many, many more, were 
committed and persisted in before the Jameson raid occurred or 
was ever thought of. In fact, the condition of the Outlanders has 
been distinctly better since the Jameson raid occurred. Although 
the raiders were defeated and captured, Mr. Kruger was not 



20 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

thereafter quite so confident that the Outlanders would never 
fight as he had been before. After that raid, and not before, he 
permitted Johannesburg to have some kind of local government, 
insisting, of course, that this government should be absolutely 
under the control of his own creatures. Still, it was much better 
to have a local government of his nomination than to have none 
at all. 

The Outlanders Petition the Queen* 

At length, on March 24, 1899, a petition signed by 21,648 
Uitlanders was forwarded by the High Commissioner to Her 
Majesty, praying that she would intervene to secure just treat- 
ment for the Uitlanders. 

After some correspondence between the two governments, and 
a friendly suggestion from the President of the Orange Free 
State, a conference was arranged between Sir Alfred Milner, the 
High Commissioner of South Africa, and President Kruger. The 
conference took place at Bloomfontein, the capital of the Orange 
Free State, and lasted from May 31 to June 5. 

Sir Alfred Milner then proposed that the franchise should be 
granted to every white man who had been five years in the country, 
and was prepared to take oath to obey the laws, to undertake all 
the obligations of citizenship, and to defend the independence of 
the country ; it being understood that by taking such an oath he 
renounced his citizenship of any other country. A property 
qualification and good character were to be conditions. The 
assertion has been frequently made that Sir Alfred Milner wished 
to secure the citizenship of the Transvaal for British subjects under 
conditions which would still allow them to remain British subjects ; 
but there is no foundation for this statement. 

In reply to this proposal. President Kruger urged that the 
Uitlanders did not want the franchise, and would not take it on 
any terms ; and also, that if he granted Sir Alfred Milner's request 
the country would be controlled by foreigners, and all power taken 
from the old burghers, — propositions which are mutually de- 
structive. But on the third day of the conference President 
Kruger himself presented a new franchise proposal. This was 
passed by the Volksraad at once, before the British authorities 
had any time to examine it. After it was published it appeared 
on its very face so full of intricacies that its effect as a measure 
of reform was a matter of serious doubt. Under its terms an alien 
could apparently secure the franchise in seven years, but the con- 
ditions were so complicated that to fulfill them was impossible. 
To give only one example : A man who desired the franchise 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 21 

must first signify his intention in writing to tne Field Comet, the 
Landdrost, and the State Secretary. Two years later he might 
become naturalized (without receiving full burgher rights), pro- 
vided he produced a certificate, signed by the Field Cornet, the 
Landdrost, and the Commandant of the district, to the effect that 
he had never broken any of the laws of the Republic. If these 
officials were not sufficiently well acquainted with the private life 
of the applicant to grant such a certificate, then a sworn statement 
to the same effect, signed by two-thirds of his neighbors, must be 
made ; it is then handed to the State Attorney, who should return 
it with a legal opinion to the State Secretary. If the opinion were 
favorable the man might be granted the full franchise ; if not, the 
matter was to be referred to the Executive Council. 

In view of the opinion expressed by Sir Alfred Milner and 
prominent Uitlanders that on the face of it the law appeared 
almost unworkable, Mr. Chamberlain telegraphed, asking for the 
appointment of delegates from the Transvaal and from the British 
side to discuss the new law, to see if it would as a matter of fact 
effect the needed reforms. To Mr. Chamberlain's request for a 
joint inquiry the Transvaal Government sent a reply in which 
nothing was said about the joint inquiry, but in which a proposal 
was made for a new franchise law. The basis of the new proposal 
was a five years' retrospective franchise. The following condi- 
tions, which are taken verbatim from the Transvaal Government's 
official translation of its note, were attached : The proposals of 
this Government regarding questions of franchise and representa- 
tion must be regarded as expressly conditional on Her Majesty's 
Government consenting to the points set forth in paragraph 5 of 
that despatch ; namely: (a.) In future not to interfere in internal 
affairs of the South African Republic. (^.) Not to insist further 
on its assertion of existence of suzerainty. (^.) To agree to 
arbitration. Further, it was explicitly stated by the State Attor- 
ney that these offers could only be understood to stand if Eng- 
land decided not to press her request for a joint inquiry into the 
political representation of the Uitlanders. There can be no doubt 
about this rejection of the joint inquiry, for the draft of the 
telegram in which the British agent conveyed the suggestions to 
Sir Alfred' Milner was initialled by the State Attorney himself. 

Declaration of "War against Great Britain* 

This was the ultimatum presented to Great Britain by the 
Transvaal, the non-acceptance of which produced the present 
war with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, who joined the 
latter in the declaration of war against Great Britain. The ulti- 



22 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 

matum contained also a peremptory demand for Great Britain to 
withdraw her troops from South Africa, and recall all those en 
route, and to give assurance that no more troops should be landed 
there. It was not likely that Great Britain should take this delib- 
erate insult from President Kruger, and take a back seat among 
the nations of the world. England showed a great deal of pa- 
tience and forbearance, and has resorted to all possible means of 
diplomacy during the past few years to avert war, for it was well 
known what the consequence would be. 

In an address made in the House of Commons on May 8, 
1896, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said: "A war in South Africa 
would be one of the most serious wars that could possibly be 
waged. It would be in the nature of a civil war. It would be a 
long war, a bitter war, and a costly war." 

Those in authority at London have foreseen from the first that 
the work cut out for them to do was one of tremendous difficulty. 

They were aware that for years past the Government of the 
South African Republic had been in the enjoyment of an immense 
revenue, and that it had spent this freely in the purchase of 
military supplies of all kinds. They were aware that, small as 
the population of the South African Republic and the Orange 
Free State might seem to be, the male population from sixteen to 
seventy years of age could be called upon to a man to take an 
active part in the struggle, and that these soldiers were many of 
them, through daily experience, the best equipped fighters that 
could be found. ^ 

Disloyalty of the Cape Dutch* 

The half-hearted loyalty of the Cape Dutch led by President 
Schreiner also caused much concern in England, for there has 
been no question of the feeling of the Dutch. On that point an 
old South African resident said recently : *^ The stories of Dutch 
disaffection are in no way exaggerated. The Dutch are bitterly 
hostile to the imperial authority. They are a sullen, silent, 
secret people, who have been plotting for twenty or thirty years 
against the British. It has been the dream of the Afrikanders 
to turn the whole of South Africa into a Dutch repubUc, in 
which all of British nationaHty would be reduced to the position 
of political helots, like the Outlanders of the Transvaal." The 
only question has been whether matters of policy and awe of 
the British would not hold them in check. That seems to be 
in a fair way to be answered by the people themselves, for the 
burghers of the Cape appear to be sending their young men 
into the field, while the old men craftily stay at home with a pre- 



BRITISH AND DUTCH lAT SOUTH AFRICA, 23 

tence of loyalty, designed to stave off confiscation of property in 
the event of British success. 

The Future Existence of the Eqipire at Stake* 

It will be asked, if this is the case, if the English Government 
was aware that it would have to sacrifice the lives of so many of 
its soldiers, and go to such an expense, why it did not make 
some satisfactory compromise. The reply to this would be that 
the Government realized that the future of the British Empire was 
weighing in the Boer balance. The Transvaal was a country 
over which England exercised, by treaty, suzerain powers. The 
Pretoria Convention and the subsequent London Convention gave 
to the English the right to live, travel, trade, and possess prop- 
erty in the Republic, and when the anomalous condition presented 
itself of a community, chiefly of Englishmen, living in the Trans- 
vaal, larger in numbers than the Boers themselves, but deprived, 
through the political instrumentality of the latter, of civil rights 
and social opportunities that are ordinarily accorded, while at 
the same time called upon to pay more than nine-tenths of all 
the taxes, — when these conditions were presented and an appeal 
made for aid to the Imperial Government, and that Government 
found itself helpless to secure results through peaceful measures, 
then it became a question whether in any part of the world the 
treaty rights of an Englishman would be worth anything if the 
Government failed to enforce them in this instance. 

The British Empire rests, as the Roman Empire did, upon pre- 
rogatives of citizenship, and if the English Government is not 
wiUing to support these, no matter what the cost may be, then it 
only becomes a question of time, and that a relatively brief time, 
when the prestige of the Empire will suffer a fatal eclipse. The 
price to be paid in this instance may be a high one, but it is one 
which had to be paid. 

The Conunencement of the W^ar* 

It was, furthermore, recognized that the war would at the outset 
give advantages to the Boers. They have been quietly preparing 
for it for months past, and when the short term laid down in the 
ultimatum of President Krager ended they were ready to send 
an overwhelming force across the border. Probably the rela- 
tively small English force that was opposed to them held its own 
quite as well as could have been expected. There was, naturally, 
great impatience among the English people at the seeming delay 
in beginning active and aggressive operations after a large force 
of English soldiers had been landed in South Africa. It was this 



24 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

feeling that induced the British generals to advance against the 
impregnable Boer positions, and led to the late disastrous re- 
verses to the British troops. 

The preliminary stages of the war, those in which the Boers 
were at their best, have now practically come to an end. From 
this time forward there is to be hard, desperate fighting. It 
may be that England has fresh reverses to meet, for the Boers, 
operating upon interior lines, have, strategically considered, many 
advantages which the English do not possess, and they can, more- 
over, mass their troops at this point or that with a celerity which 
the English cannot hope to equal. But the final result is no 
more in doubt now than it was when the war was declared. Even 
if it requires the despatch of another, or still another force to South 
Africa equal to that which has been already sent, the sacrifice 
must be made. The imperial system of England is at stake, and 
she cannot afford on this question to lower her standard. 

Foreign Intervention* 

The suggestion has been made by several newspapers of con- 
tinental Europe that the time is approaching when it may be 
necessary for one or more of the great powers to intervene in the 
war now going on in South Africa, for the purpose of putting an 
end to this exceedingly bloody contest. Unfortunately, this war 
is one which does not lend itself to this form of arrest. It par- 
takes in certain features of the nature of a civil war, an effort on 
the part of a semi-independent State to throw off the political 
connections which bind it to another. In certain respects it 
resembles the contest carried on by the Federal Government 
against the Southern Confederacy, a contest in which, if interfer 
ence had been attempted, we should have looked upon the power 
presuming to interfere as an enemy, and would have had no hesi- 
tancy in making such action the occasion [far a declaration of 
war. The reason for such action on our part would not have 
been our desire to fight, or to needlessly prolong a struggle, 
but a keen realization that, if we did not carry the war to a 
thoroughly successful conclusion, it meant the dismemberment 
of the United States and the impairment of our standing in the 
world as a great, growing, and prosperous nation. 

Great Britain is, however, now embarked in this contest, and 
for her own future standing as a nation must not only carry it to 
an end, but must end it in a way that leaves her unquestionably 
in entire control of the situation. 

She cannot afford, any more than we could, to tolerate or 
permit of interference. The nation or nations that took it upon 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IJV SOUTH AFRICA, 25 

themselves to thus act would need to be held by her as enemies, 
and to be proceeded against as such. 

What the Success of the Boers would Mean to Great Britain. 

The only outcome of intervention would be an enforced 
acknowledgment that the Boers were to be independent, and 
that they were to have the dominant power in South Africa, 
separating the British possessions at the Cape of Good Hope 
completely from those the English hold in central and northern 
Africa. This, so far as England is concerned, would be but the 
beginning of the end. 

Following on such an enforced peace would be an uprising in 
India, artfully encouraged by Russian influences, and affording 
Russia an opportunity to come in as the apparent friend and 
sympathizer of the Indian people. Besides this, an inroad would 
be instantly made by covetous European nations upon Egypt and 
such other colonial possessions as England has which are not 
held by a self-governing people. With these latter, such, for 
example, as Canada and Australia, independence would probably 
prove necessar}' in order to avoid the complications which might 
follow the downfall of the imperial strength of Great Britain. 

Against such an outcome the EngHsh are compelled to offer 
the most strenuous resistance, and unquestionably this is what 
they will do. So seriously would our trade interests all over the 
world suffer by a reversal which deprived Great Britain of the 
position she now holds that we could well afford not only to pro- 
test against such intervention, but to offer our assistance in pre- 
venting it. The downfall of England would not only mean to 
the United States the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of 
annual trade, but it would mean the closing up, once and forever, 
of those opportunities for an enormous enlargement of our 
trade which at present appear so alluring and promising. What- 
ever may be our sentiments and prejudices, so far as our foreign 
trade is concerned, we are indissolubly bound up with the well- 
being of the United Kingdom and the development through all 
distant parts of the world of English trade policy. It would be 
greatly to our advantage if the war now going on could be 
brought to a prompt conclusion by the success of England. This 
may not be possible, — that is, it may drag on for months to come, 
— but it ought to be realized, particularly in this country, that it 
can have but one end, and hence the longer it is continued, the 
greater the waste of human life on both sides, with the more 
complete destruction of the Boers, whose bravery and military skill 
entitle them to a happier fate. than that of dying in the last ditch. 



26 BRITISH AND DUTCH lAT SOUTH AFRICA, 

Great Britain will not Tolerate any Interference* 

There are, without doubt, many people in this country who are 
heartily in accord with Senator Mason's views on the war in South 
Africa, and such views are not unnatural. It should be remem- 
bered, however, that how legitimate soever private sympathy may 
be, a public expression of such sentiments by the legislative 
branch of the United States Government would be a grave breach 
of international courtesy and a disavowal of the strict neutrality 
which it has been announced this country would maintain. 

With our army engaged in suppressing the FiHpinos, and with 
Porto Rico in the process of benevolent assimilation, advice to 
Great Britain with respect to her treatment of the Boers comes 
with very bad grace. To assume to denounce Great Britain's 
action in South Africa would be a grave and uncalled-for bit of 
impertinence on our part. England would have had just as much 
right to find fault with our making war on . Spain because Spain 
was a monarchy as we have to find fault with England for making 
war on the Transvaal because that country is a republic. 

We went to war with Mexico fifty years ago to assist the Texas 
Outlanders in their war of independence against Mexico. 

We went to war with Spain because she was harassing her own 
people. 

Sam Adams said that taxation without representation was 
tyranny. The British are fighting that the Outlanders may have 
equal rights and equal representation, which is denied them by the 
Boers. 

How Holland Lost Belgium, 

History is repeating itself again. The Dutch are doing pre- 
cisely the same thing in South Africa that they did in Belgium, 
and which lost them that country. The population of Belgium in 
1830 was 4,000,000, that of Holland, 2,500,000. The debt of 
Belgium was 4,000,000 florins, that of Holland, 1,200,000,000 
florins. Holland would not allow Belgium equal representation 
and obliged her to pay one-half of the debt, and would not allow the 
use of the French language in the courts. Government offices, and 
schools, Belgium being one-half French-speaking. The result 
was the Revolution of 1834, in which Holland lost Belgium. This 
is the same spirit that is shown by the Dutch in the Transvaal 
against the Outlanders. 

Consequences of the Boer "War, 
With regard to the other and more probable issue of the war, 
' — i.e., that the English are victorious all along the line, that the 



BRITISH AND DUTCH TAT SOUTH AFRICA. 27 

pretensions of the '^Afrikander nation*' are abated, — the first 
consequence in order of importance, though not in sequence of 
time, will be the federation of the South African States under the 
British flag. For at least three years after the conclusion of the 
war the Transvaal and the Orange Free State will probably be 
governed as an absolute crown colony under military occupation, 
with an elective sanitary, municipal, and educational system for 
Johannesburg and the Rand. The passions aroused by the pres- 
ent contest are too violent to be subdued until the Boers have 
experienced for a few years the effect of British justice and integ- 
rity in dealing with a brave but conquered people. After Pre- 
toria and Johannesburg are occupied, and equal rights for all 
white men south of the Zambesi have been won by British arms, 
a period for healing will be necessary before constitutional gov- 
ernment can be safely intrusted to an Outlander and Boer popu- 
lation, whose position will have become reversed after the de- 
struction of the forts at Pretoria and the Rand and the disarma- 
ment of the Boer levies. British statesmen recognize that if the 
fight with the Boers is fought to a finish that Boers and British 
will be compelled to live side by side for all time, and that there- 
fore the settlement must be one that is strictly just to the Dutch 
population. 

The fundamental conditions, therefore, that will govern the 
permanent settlement of South Africa by the English Cabinet are, 
firstly, that British and Boers must live side by side ; and secondly, 
that the disarmament of the Boer inhabitants of the two republics 
must be so complete and effective that there shall be no risk of 
rebelHon after the retirement of the British troops. 

G)nfedefation of South Africa* 

Confederation under the British flag will immensely simplify 
the political and economic problems of South Africa. Firstly, 
its foreign poHcy will become the policy of the British Empire. 
The new African Federation has as neighbors two foreign States, 
Portugal and Germany, and the extinction of the Boer diplomat. 
Dr. Leyds, and his mischievous activity in Lisbon and Berlin, 
will not be the smallest of the many benefits that will accrue to 
the world from the federation of the African States. 

The federation of South Africa will settle many questions long 
outstanding, as well as bring others, now dormant, upon the stage 
of practical politics. Among the advantages of the open door in 
Africa will be the administrative economies that will follow the 
union of the various members of the African State. The removal 
of the customs control from five separate and competitive sys- 



28 BRITISH AND DUTCH IIV SOUTH AFRICA. 

tems, and their concentration under one head, will lighten taxa- 
tion, increase revenue, and improve trade, in which Americans 
will largely participate. Railway administration, under one board 
of control, honestly and skilfully conducted, will revolutionize the 
conditions under which commerce is now carried on, and the de- 
velopment of the country will receive a much-needed stimulus. 

Development of the Country, 

The absence of navigable rivers, and of mountains with a snow- 
line, renders the formation of an irrigation department in South 
Africa, on Anglo- Egyptian lines, highly desirable, if not absolutely 
necessary. The Transvaal has 22,000 farms, but imports most of 
the food consumed. Facihties for food production exist. Catch- 
ment areas abound throughout the Cape and the republics, where 
rainfall can be stored. The passing of a scab act, universal and 
compulsory, will bear fruit in the improved quality of merino wool 
and in the prosperity of the Dutch farming population. The 
establishment of regulations for dealing with phylloxera in the 
wine districts will effect a revolution in the manufacture and 
quality of the wine now grown at the Cape. The enactment of 
an excise law throughout South Africa will redeem the Cape 
Colony from the stigma of being the only civilized Government 
in the world that debauches its population by untaxed brandy and 
impoverishes it by dear bread. The appointment of one post- 
master-general for the whole of South Africa will add to domestic 
happiness and business prosperity. One system of internal de- 
fence against the blacks is a measure that has long been required 
in the interests of both races of white men. 

Great Immigration and Prosperity, 

These measures, while leaving to each member of the federation 
complete control over all matters not specifically entrusted to the 
federal executive, would be followed by such a period of prosperity 
that tens and even hundreds of thousands of immigrants from 
Great Britain and Ireland, and the United States, would find 
lucrative occupation and happy homes. The natural wealth of 
the Transvaal is not yet scratched. Coal and iron measures of the 
finest quahty exist in close proximity to Johannesburg. After 
the seventy or eighty years of Hfe for the gold mines, which is 
admitted by experts to be the probable limit of the present mines, 
the manufacturing potentialities of Southern Africa are almost 
boundless. The climate is magnificent, and when race politics 
are killed with the war, there is little reason to doubt that Cape 
Town will rival Melbourne in wealth and population. 



BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA, 29 



Opinions of Prominent Clergymen^ 

Extracts from a sermon delivered by Mtnot J, Savage at the 
Church of the Messiah, New York, Dec. 22, i8gg : 

^* First let me address myself for a moment to a certain natural 
feeling of irritation and hostility on the part of Americans as 
against the average Englishmen \ for it certainly does exist. I 
meet it everywhere. We look back and remember the great 
struggle of 1776; and we are apt to think that England is our 
hereditary foe, because of the strife, so bitter and so prolonged, 
at that time. 

" Was it England fighting America in such a sense that we ought 
to lay up any slightest feeling of enmity from that far-away time ? 
Did you ever think — if you have not, I beg to impress it upon 
you, so you will never forget it again — that the thing we fought 
for in 1776 was an outright gift to us on the part of England? 
Did the Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Cavaliers, and their descend- 
ants, originate one single idea of liberty for which we fought 
against King George ? No. Englishmen originated them — 
every one. From the days of King John, the barons, and Magna 
Charta, down to the magnificent history of the men who stood for 
manhood rights against kingly prerogative, Cromwell, Milton, every 
one of them, fought and wrought out at the cost of their lives the 
liberty for which we fought in Boston, for which Washington gave 
his noblest and highest devotion. It was not a warfare between 
the colonists and England : Pitt and his compeers represented 
the heart of England. We fought kingly prerogative such as 
Cromwell fought. It was the last pretence of the divine right of 
kings in Lord North and George III. It was these things that 
were fighting liberty, not only in the colonies, but at home ; and 
every particle of liberty which we started with as a young nation, 
and which we have developed and enriched and enlarged, is the 
gift of magnificent England. Never forget that. But for Eng- 
land we should not have had these ideas of liberty that have been 
the glory of our own land. 

*^ England to-day has no single advantage over any other 
country on the face of the earth in any one of her colonies except 
that which is based on kinship and mutual consideration and the 
skill of England in the matters of trade. The ports of these 
colonies are as free to us, as free to France, as free to Russia, as 
free to Turkey, as they are to the mother-country itself. 

" What is the poHcy of England in India to-day ? The old 
rajahs, the petty kings, robbed the people, ground them down to 
the very last limit of the possibility of life. Why ? To build 



30 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

palaces and monuments and expensive harems which they decor- 
ated and kept for their own pleasure. What has England done 
in India ? She has not taken a dollar from India for her own 
behoof. The taxes of India are used in India and for the benefit 
of India ; and it has been unspeakably blessed and benefited in 
every conceivable way by English occupation. 

" I do not care what led England there in the first place. I 
have neither time nor inclination to raise the question, or try 
to answer it, as to what has taken England to any part of the 
globe ; but I challenge contradiction to this statement : There is 
not a spot on earth to-day where England's foot is placed that 
would not be unspeakably worse to-morrow if that foot were lifted 
and taken away. Not one step has England taken around the 
world that has not meant the uplift of humanity, finer and higher 
religion, education, industrial advance, opportunity for liberty, 
just as fast as the people were fit for it, — unspeakable blessing 
to all the people involved. 

" Where, then, should our sympathies be ? At the very outset, 
whatever the problem that comes up, should they not be with 
England ? 

*' Let us now for a moment glance at the condition of things 
in South Africa. We are sometimes told that England is simply 
grabbing for new possessions there, for mines and money and 
power, as she has done in other parts of the world. 

" I do not claim to know the ins and outs of the problems in 
South Africa, but I understand the situation to be something like 
this : The Boers had possession of this country, supposed to be 
simply an agricultural country ; and they were leading the lives 
of farming people. It was discovered to be immensely rich in 
mines and wealth of every kind ; and, naturally, people from all 
over the world flocked in there. Have the Boers a right to keep 
everybody else out — a right, if it be one, that no nation on the 
face of the earth ever conceded even if claimed? We made no 
such claim in regard to California or to any of our possessions. 
What is the result ? EngHshmen went in every day, until there 
were more Outlanders than there were Boers. And the Boer 
Government promised them certain rights and privileges which 
they did not concede. They made promises which they never 
kept. One of their rules was that an EngUshman must be a 
resident fifteen years before he could vote. He might be taxed 
and harried and hampered the first year he is there. He must 
get out a paper, or a pass, — I think it is every six months, or 
very frequently, — before he can travel from one part of the 
country to another. In other words, he is hampered, harried, 



BRITISH AND DUTCH lAT SOUTH AFRICA, 31 

and taxed at every turn, and has no voice whatever in the Gov- 
ernment that claims thus to dominate and rule. 

"Would we bear it? I trow not. Out of this condition of 
things has come the irritation that has burst forth into war. And 
naturally it seems to me, I believe inevitably ; and I believe that 
at every point the English have been right. That is, every point 
of importance. I do not say there have not been individual 
wrongs, grievances, irritations. But the contention of England 
— the main contention — I believe to be righteous contention. 
And when England wins, as she will, it will mean not oppression 
to the Boers, not even the kind of oppression they have exercised 
over the English. It will mean liberty, education, enlightenment. 
It will mean every good thing for the people concerned, whether 
they be British or Boers. 

" This is my view, the most intelligent one I have been able to 
gain of the English situation in South Africa. 

" I believe, friends, that a disaster to England would be the 
greatest world calamity that could be conceived, next to the 
destruction of our own republic. England is fighting as against 
Russia in China — for what ? For English advantages ? No. For 
the advantage of civilization. She is fighting for open ports, 
for liberty. She is fighting to keep the Czar from absorbing 
China and for the sake of the world. She is not taking a single 
advantage in any Chinese port that is not open to us after her on 
the same terms, while she perhaps has paid the bills in blood 
and pounds for the achievement. 

" I believe that, if worst came to worst, and there was a war 
between Russia and England in the East for the two world ideals 
which they represent, — I believe America would owe it as the 
highest duty to God and man to place every ship, every gun, 
every dollar she possessed, at the back of and beside England 
[applause] , not for the advantage of America, not for the advan- 
tage of England, but for God and for man and duty. I will 
say nothing as to our debt to England for her silent but no less 
potent friendship a year ago. I speak of higher interests and of 
world-wide obligations. 

" God forefend, God grant that there may be no meddling on 
the part of France or Russia until England settles the problem 
which she has on her hands to-day ! But did I wield the power 
of this nation, and such meddling came, I would say, ^ Hands off 1 ' 
to any DOwer on the globe. 

" England and America are one at heart, one in religion, one 
in interest, one in ideals, one in hopes ; and we must be one in 
either defeat or triumph." 



32 BRITISH AXD DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



Letter from a Son of tlie Rev. H« ?L EKigmore, a well-known 
Minister in South Africa* 

^' We are now paying the penalty of the huge blunder of 1881. 
We earnestly hope that this time the eyes of our friends in Eng- 
land have been opened, and they will see clearly that one of two 
things must be — either the whole country from Cape Town to 
the Zambesi must come under the British flag, or that flag must 
forever cease to be, in this southern land, the emblem of freedom, 
truth, and honor, and the guarantee for equal rights, liberty, and 
justice to all. We all owe a debt of everlasting gratitude to Sir 
Alfred Milner, whose keen insight and clear judgment so quickly 
enabled him to grasp the true fact5 of the situation, and whose 
strong will has enabled him to bring about now what would in- 
evitably have come the moment England had become involved in 
any difficulty in some other quarter. 

" For years it has been Paul Elruger's dream that ^ the South 
African Republic ' (mark the significance of the name) should 
absorb the other States and colonies, and South Africa be the 
birthplace of the Afrikander nation. The millions poured into 
his treasur}' brought him the means of furthering his object, and 
money has been lavishly spent on armaments on a scale to arm not 
only his own burghers, but ever}' Dutchman in South Africa who 
could be seduced from his lawful allegiance and got to join in 
the anibi^i ous schemes of this would-be dictator. 

You \\'\A not wonder that the reading of the speeches in the 
papers now being received here, delivered a fortnight or three 
weeks ago by liberal leaders like Sir William Harcourt and others, 
should make loyal colonists curse the very name of Liberal were 
the scale not more than turned by the utterances of other Liberals 
like Lord Rosebery and Sir Edward Grey. The Boers have 
translated and are circulating Sir William Harcourt' s speeches 
among the colonial Dutch in order to induce them to rebel against 
the Queen and join them. 

"I have lived all my life in this colony, and have many friends 
amongst the colonial Dutch, many of whom have during the last two 
weeks come to me for advice as to what they should do if the 
Free State commandos came and commandeered them. I have 
been closely watching the course of events for years, and I fully 
indorse the opinion expressed by Theo. Schreiner, that this war was 
inevitable, and that the aims of Paul Kruger, Reitz, Steyn, and 
others were to oust the British flag, and establish an Afrikander 
nation in South Africa. Thank God their hands have been forced 
and the struggle has been precipitated before it was too late." 



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